


Override Protocols

by weakinteraction



Category: Revelation Space Series - Alastair Reynolds
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Power Dynamics, Technological Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:07:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: "Along with the rest of the crew, Khouri would eventually enter reefersleep for the bulk of the time that the ship took to reach Resurgam. But before then she spent much of her waking time in the gunnery, being subjected to endless simulations." (Revelation Space, Chapter 8)





	Override Protocols

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



Volyova placed a tray down in front of her. "Here, eat."

Khouri looked down at it. She had plenty of experience with combat rations from her soldiering days on Sky's Edge, but even by those standards this was unappetising slop. Even with its extensive damage, the _Nostalgia for Infinity_ could prepare anything, within reason -- for that matter, it could have easily reformatted this austere mess hall into a palatial dining room -- but the contents of the tray in front of her seemed like the sort of thing you'd give to convicts, or perhaps that extreme chimerics like Triumvir Hegazi might consume, if they had lost all human sense of taste.

But she had seen Hegazi eating before he went into reefersleep, and while it had been a sort of broth, enticingly rich spicy aromas had risen from it.

As Volyova sat down opposite, Khouri saw that she had the exact same meal on her tray. And Volyova was almost belligerent about being an Ultra without any implants at all.

This was yet another test, then. Determined not to give the Triumvir the satisfaction of having anything to find fault with, Khouri began to eat.

"We'll start training tomorrow," Volyova said after a while.

Khouri swallowed her latest mouthful before replying, "What were we doing up until now?"

Volyova smiled, but it wasn't a particularly kind smile. "Little more than basic familiarisation with the systems, really." Khouri wondered for a moment if she was including the eerie tour of the cache weapons within that rubric. "You have to be ready to _fight_." She waved her utensil expansively. "I know you've got plenty of ground-based experience, but lighthugger combat is different." She looked Khouri straight in the eye as she said, "You'll see."

* * *

The first day of intense simulation experience had proven Volyova's point, at least to some extent. The experience of slipping into gunspace, her own physical sensations as she sat in the gunnery seat drowning beneath the wealth of sensor data coming in from the ship's weapon systems, had already become familiar, but the range of different scenarios that Volyova began to put her through emphasised the point.

First, she fired against planetary targets. Straightforward, but there were still factors to be taken into account: diurnal rotation, atmospheric drag. The simulations were all cast in scenarios where one of the protagonists in a conflict on the planetary surface had persuaded the lighthugger crew to make a decisive intervention, and the military bases were all conveniently distant from the civilian population centres.

But Khouri had known life on Sky's Edge, and there was never such a clean distinction between the two in her experience. Besides, despite the seemingly neverending war on the planet, the Ultras never involved themselves in such things beyond selling their wares, usually to whoever bid highest for them, and quite possibly to both sides. Maybe it was their general aloofness to the concerns of planet-bound populations, or maybe it was a vestige of self-preservation instinct: even a lighthugger crew would think twice before antagonising an entire planet in such fashion.

And so it seemed what she was really training for was gross intimidation of planetary targets. The sort of thing that could only really be tried on a world with few to no orbital defences (though some of the simulation scenarios did involve knocking these out in a first strike), far from the main trading networks, because any ship that did attempt it would be unwelcome at any other planet that became aware. On one level, Khouri began to understand something of the Ultra perspective; anything planetside was ridiculously vulnerable in comparison to a starship that could reach within touching distance of lightspeed, even if it didn't have advanced weapons systems: dropping a large enough object from high enough up in the gravitational field turned it into a devastating kinetic weapon all by itself, and that was before you started to think about what could be done with the star-bright exhaust of a Conjoiner drive.

Next came ship-to-ship combat. At in-system speeds, this was messy and chaotic, various different weapon systems and countermeasures deploying one after the other, almost entirely autonomously. Gunspace then felt like unarmed combat, up close and personal, and operating mostly on instinct. These, though, were instincts that she didn't know she had, as they were the instincts of the ship and its self-defence mechanisms, instincts that she did not have to train directly. What she did have to do was learn how to see through the detail to work out a way of gaining a tactical advantage, to add that human element that the computer could only have done if it was running at least a beta level simulation. Given the advanced tactics on display from the opponent ships in some of the scenarios, Khouri was convinced that Volyova herself was intervening as the simulation went on, though her responses were far slower than they could have been if she had had implants like Khouri's. When asked about it directly, though, she always denied the charge, claiming that the ship merely had a very large database of combat records, both real life and previously simulated, to draw on, like a chess computer consulting its tables of openings and endgames.

At relativistic speeds, on the other hand, conflict between ships became something altogether different. The minute differences in acceleration between one ship and the next, depending entirely on how far beyond tolerances they were willing to push their drives, meant that the build up to any actual combat would take weeks or even months. The scenario was in many ways an extremely unlikely one; another crew would have to have a very serious motive for even attempting it, or an overwhelmingly powerful grudge that had taken on the scale of a full-blown vendetta -- given what she knew of Ultras, the latter seemed the more likely. There was no way to directly simulate the anxiety-inducing weeks of buildup, which would have affected the whole crew, not just her as gunnery officer, but Volyova still made her sit for hours at a time as the enemy ship lunged closer, before the strategies -- which Volyova provided, but in real life would have been worked out by the whole crew over long stretches of time -- could come into effect.

The Mademoiselle -- or rather, her digital ghost, though as their distance from Yellowstone increased at dizzying rates, the distinction seemed to become less and less important -- took advantage of these sessions in particular to keep in contact with Khouri. She repeatedly reminded her of her true mission, the assassination of Sylveste once they reached Resurgam, and, whenever she sensed Khouri becoming too frustrated with a particular drill she was being put through, the need to keep Volyova on side as part of it. According to the Mademoiselle, Khouri should now begin to act as though the loyalty therapies Volyova had applied, but which the Mademoiselle was devoting considerable effort to counteracting, had completely taken over.

Throughout the weeks of training, Volyova maintained the routine of feeding Khouri the same meagre rations, and eating the same herself. For a long time she thought that it was a test of whether the loyalty therapies were working: that if they weren't, Khouri would surely eventually complain. But after a while Khouri decided that perhaps Volyova just didn't really care about food at all. Then again, there seemed to be very little that she did care about, beyond the weapons she maintained, or designed. An elegant, efficient design that would cause exactly the precise amount of devastation required for the minimum expenditure of matériel and energy was the highest expression of her creativity, and a system working perfectly was the closest she came to being satisfied.

Khouri began to think that the most significant relationships in Volyova's life by far were with her weapons systems. Certainly, when she spoke of the other Triumvirs -- as she was doing now, in fact, explaining some of their previous exploits in the system around Kapteyn's Star -- it was barely concealed contempt. The more time went on, Khouri decided that while she still didn't really _like_ the Triumvir, she could respect her competence, and her single-minded dedication.

"The woman is obsessed with weapons," the Mademoiselle agreed, her image flickering into existence on the opposite side of the table, as though she had been sat next to Volyova all along.

"Go away," Khouri subvocalised. Holding two conversations at once wasn't going to help her maintain her cover.

The Mademoiselle ignored her. "She either built or rebuilt almost every system on this ship, except for the cache weapons of course. And even those she has made intense studies of, and made multiple refinements to their auxiliary systems. And yet ..."

Khouri raised an eyebrow; luckily, this seemed to be an appropriate response to the point Volyova had reached in her story -- probably she had just been detailing some poor decision making on Sajaki's part.

"She has no implants," the Mademoiselle said. "She cannot interface with the gunnery herself. Can never experience what you experience in there."

"You think she wants to?" Khouri asked.

"I don't know," the Mademoiselle said. "But I do know this. As far as she's concerned, you're a component in her weapons systems. Nothing more. She'd be just as happy completely alone on the ship with everyone else in reefersleep as she is having you for company."

"Well?" Volyova said.

She had finished speaking, Khouri realised. "I'm not an Ultra," she said. "I mean, I guess I'm a crewmember on a lighthugger now. But Ultra culture ... I could care less. I'm here to do a job, that's all."

"So what, you're working your passage to Resurgam?" The subtext was clear: what could possibly attract anyone to such an out-of-the-way dump of a planet? It was a pity Volyova hadn't come right out and said it, or she might have been able to ask the question back about why the crew of the _Nostalgia for Infinity_ were so keen to go there.

Then again, it was probably for the best if they didn't dig further through the layers and layers of cover stories the Mademoiselle had prepared. "Something like that," she said noncommittally.

"Ana," Volyova said. She hesitated, but in a way that seemed too obviously rehearsed. "Do you mind if I call you Ana?"

"Can I call you Ilia?"

There was no response.

"Call me what you like," Khouri said, "but I've been 'Khouri' all my adult life. Usually with some sort of rank in front of it, I suppose." She looked up at her. "Do you want to call me 'Gunnery Officer Khouri'?"

Something shifted in Volyova's eyes then. "Careful," the Mademoiselle said, wearing one of the sterner expressions in her repertoire. "Remember, she needs to think her loyalty therapies are working."

"When you start calling me Triumvir," Volyova said, with a short laugh that seemed almost genuine. But whatever she had been about to say, whether it had been about their destination, or something ridiculous about how she had a bright future ahead of her as an Ultra if she wanted it, the moment seemed to have passed, and they spent the rest of the meagre meal in silence.

* * *

Khouri settled into the gunnery seat for the latest session. She was looking forward to the distraction: she had dreamed of Sky's Edge, the home she would never likely see again. But in the dream, she had indeed returned, aboard the _Nostalgia for Infinity_.

She had returned, and bombed the entire planet into dust.

Volyova's voice crackled over the communicator, a deliberately low-tech relay due to the safeguards built in to prevent the gunnery systems interfacing with the rest of the ship. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Khouri said.

Without any further warning, the simulation began. Khouri's sense of herself altered, expanded, as she slipped into gunspace. Her own body felt distant, and yet she could also feel it inside her, in the gunnery, as in some sense she became the _Nostalgia for Infinity_.

Something was different. But not wrong. If anything, it was more right than it had ever been previously.

Her awareness of the ship's weapons systems was the same as ever, but her senses were somehow more than usual: more than they had been when she'd interfaced with the real systems rather than in sim, and more than they had been in any of the previous scenarios the Triumvir had thrown at her. She could feel far more of her -- of the ship's -- interior volume than she had ever been able to before. The cache weapons were there as always, but so too were vast hangars and internal spaces: vast numbers of colonists in reefersleep; the forest levels, but not as she had seen them when Volyova had taken her there; lush and rich.

"Volyova," she said into the comm, the act of speaking with her voice rather than sending a laser burst with the simulated ship-to-ship communications system requiring a deliberate act of will. "What's the scenario here? What's the objective?"

"Stay alert. Stay alive." The comm clicked off.

"Great," Khouri muttered to herself. She would almost -- almost -- have welcomed a visit from the Mademoiselle.

She allowed her awareness to stretch further. The Conjoiner drives were idling, but they were not alone. Slowly -- too slowly for Volyova's evaluation to be completely glowing, she could already tell -- she realised that the ship was in a parking orbit with a number of other lighthuggers. Somewhere beyond the immediate awareness of the weapons systems was a planet. Not Yellowstone, she felt certain. But somewhere well enough visited for several lighthuggers to have gathered at once.

Could this be the First System? Earth itself? Or circumjovian space?

She was getting distracted. The most important point was that this was a recreation of some point in the past, before whatever had happened to the _Nostalgia for Infinity_ to turn it into the strange, decaying entity she now inhabited, something between plague vessel and ghost ship.

No. The most important point was that this was a combat simulation. Perhaps this was a recreation of _how_ it had happened.

"This is the bridge." A voice she didn't recognise. Some subroutine was whispering to her that she was hearing the words translated from Middle Norte, but Khouri ignored it. "The _Orion Ablaze_ are, er, asserting their idiosyncratic perception of the parking rights situation rather more forcefully than anticipated. Stand by."

Another lighthugger was vectoring towards her, weapons hot.

Khouri flexed her virtual muscles instinctively. In this configuration, she felt even stronger than commanding the ship's arsenal usually felt. Not least because of the cache, now more like a deadly silence inside her in comparison to the more active status of the other ship systems, where she was used to it being a single point of clarity amongst the muddled internal sensor readouts.

"No cache weapons," Volyova said, suddenly cutting in. Her monitoring of the simulation must have shown the preliminary activation of the systems around the weapons that had happened entirely instinctively. "Too many other ships around."

Khouri had never intended to use them. But she wasn't going to let the chance to needle Volyova slip by. "Don't want to let on what toys you've got hidden away?"

But then it was happening, and her attention was entirely back in the simulation. _Orion Ablaze_ fired, full spectrum blasts from every weapon facing the _Nostalgia_ , like an ancient sailing vessel firing a full broadside.

Khouri braced herself for the shock of an impact that never came.

She could feel that there was no damage. So what the hell had that been? Some strange sort of warning shot?

It took a moment for her to realise what had really happened: encoded in the bursts had been all manner of viral software and override protocols. The vast majority of them had been automatically blocked by the ship's electronic countermeasures, or corralled in firewalled systems where they could be purged at leisure once the immediate threat was over. But, like an overwhelming tide of infantry sent forth by a general who gave no thought to losses, only victory, a sufficient number had got through that several of the _Nostalgia_ 's systems were compromised, including the gunnery.

Had the real crew of the time caught on as quickly as she had? Or was it only the benefit of hindsight, of knowing how the ship had ended up, that had enabled Khouri to react?

Not that there was much she could do. Although the systems she controlled directly were isolated from the rest of the ship by design, they too had fallen victim to the overwhelming assault. The graser cannons were running hot, heading slowly but inexorably towards overload. Unless she regained control--

Suddenly, she was aware of her own body again, gunspace perception and physical sensation overlaid on one another, blurring together.

She was restrained in the gunnery chair. The ship was near helpless, floating in space.

The guns were overloading. Her body was hot, flushed, showing signs of a high arousal that she had been nearly completely unaware of until this moment: her nipples had hardened beneath her flight suit, her cunt sopping wet and throbbing with need.

What the fuck was this? How was the simulation having such an effect on her own physiological responses?

Her implants, she realised. Volyova must be doing something via her implants -- she was absolutely certain that it was Volyova, in real time, and not the simulated abstraction that was the other ship. She began to suspect that any resemblance this scenario bore to an incident from the ship's deep past was coincidental at best. More likely, it was deliberately misleading, another, subtle part of Volyova's indoctrination campaign that the Mademoiselle claimed to be protecting her from.

The comm flicked back on. "Are you in control?"

"No," Khouri admitted.

"Who is?"

This was definitely another test. But what was its purpose? To see if she could fight back even as her body was overwhelmed -- the grasers were continuing their steady climb towards exceeding their design tolerances, just as she was becoming more and more aroused, making it harder and harder to think -- or to see how completely she was in the Triumvir's thrall? And even if it was the former, would passing that test make her suspicious that the loyalty therapies weren't working?

"Who is in control, Khouri?" The voice over the comm was calm, measured.

"You are," she said. Involuntarily, she added, "Please ..."

"Call me Triumvir," Volyova said.

"Please, Triumvir," Khouri said, half gasp, half hiss.

The _Orion Ablaze_ fired again, this time a genuine blast from close range.

Khouri came, hard.

As the simulated _Nostalgia for Infinity_ broke apart into a billion pieces, gunspace began to fade away. The transition back to her own body wasn't instantaneous -- as various different weapons systems exploded in the wreckage, aftershocks coursed through her body. But eventually, Khouri was simply in her own body, in the gunnery seat.

After a moment, the seat released her.

The comm crackled. "Report for debriefing, Gunnery Officer Khouri."

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Khouri asked, as she stormed out of the gunnery chamber. She was determined that this would not be a standard debriefing.

"Standard counter-subversion-weaponry scenario," Volyova said. "You failed," she added acidly.

Khouri looked straight at her. "There was nothing standard about that."

Volyova was about to respond when Khouri leapt on her. She was still unsure if she was about to strike her or kiss her as she landed, and discovered that it was the latter.

Volyova tried to grab hold of her, and Khouri had the distinct sense that she was just as uncertain as Khouri herself had been about whether to fight or fuck, but Khouri quickly took hold of her hands, forcing them above her head. Volyova was not weak in the slightest, but here in real life, outside gunspace, Khouri had the advantage in unarmed close quarters, and she knew it.

Khouri pulled Volyova's wrists together so that she could hold them together against the wall with one hand, all the while continuing to kiss Volyova aggressively, thrusting her tongue into her mouth; and then the moment came when she surrendered, if only minutely, if only for the moment, and let what was happening happen. Emboldened, and with one hand now free, Khouri tugged at Volyova's standard shipboard flight suit and its unwieldy fastenings, until she was able to get inside, and plunged immediately downwards towards her mound.

She was gratified to find that Volyova was just as obviously aroused as she had been in the gunnery seat, minutes ago. But was this a response to the situation she was now in, or had doing what she had done to Khouri turned her on, as well as fulfilling whatever other purposes she had had in mind for the scenario? Right now, though, none of that mattered, in this one moment their needs and wishes seeming to align. Even though Khouri knew that this would only complicate the situation further in the already too-complicated interlocking mesh of missions and roles, she was too far gone to care.

"I need--" Volyova gasped between kisses, as Khouri teased her with her fingers.

"Is this what you want?" Khouri asked, suddenly thrusting inside her with two fingers, which slipped in easily with Volyova in such an aroused state.

Volyova could only nod, and Khouri said, "Ask nicely."

"Please," Volyova said quietly.

"I didn't hear you."

"Dammit, Khouri--"

Khouri tightened her grip on Volyova's wrists and bit -- none too gently -- on her lip as she leaned in for another kiss. "I said, _ask nicely_."

"Please," Volyova said. "Please fuck me."

Khouri gave a predatory grin and began to fingerfuck her; she started slowly, but as her own arousal began to mount once more she became more frenetic, almost wild. Volyova began to moan, and soon she reached her climax, her cunt spasming around Khouri's fingers, gripping them tight.

After a long moment, Volyova tried to wriggle free of Khouri's grasp, but Khouri took control and pushed her down to her knees. "We're not finished yet," Khouri said.

Volyova understood, pulling at Khouri's clothes -- with both hands available, the task was easier than it had been for her -- until her pants were halfway down to her knees. Volyova leaned in, tentatively at first, but then licking her with growing enthusiasm. Soon, what had been her firm grip on Volyova's head became loosened as she threw her head back, revelling in the sensations of Volyova alternating between paying attention to her clit and fucking her roughly with her tongue. Soon enough, her orgasm was surging through her.

For just a moment, Khouri had won. Volyova could have escaped, she knew it, but she hadn't. She had wanted it just as much as Khouri had.

Khouri felt a momentary sense of triumph at the expression on Volyova's face as she slumped back against the wall; almost as though she not only had lost, but _was_ lost. "I think ... I think I may need to adjust the intensity of some of the loyalty therapies you've been receiving," she said eventually. As though what had just happened was anything to do with Khouri having been too loyal and submissive.

"You do that, _Triumvir_ ," Khouri said.

As she left, she half-expected the Mademoiselle to appear, to give her a dressing down for being so foolhardy, but for once the ghost in her head had the wisdom to keep its counsel.


End file.
